


when the cherries brown

by WonderAss



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: Alternate Canon, Character Study, Developing Relationship, Drama, Eventual Smut, F/M, Found Family, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, POV Multiple, References to Canon, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 04:04:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20829116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WonderAss/pseuds/WonderAss
Summary: Life goes on. Fran and Balthier carve out a new life for themselves in the aftermath of the war, even as the past creeps behind, ever eager to make itself known.





	when the cherries brown

_"Chase not the dappled light on sunbeams, for they will blind your eyes and burn your soul."_

_\- Eruyt proverb_

*

"Dalmasca has sunk so low as to prioritize bullying _children_."

Like a hitch in a downpour, the haggling crowd's pattering voices trickle to a stop. The lull in a storm before it breaks. Balthier may have left the gilded city of Archades well behind him, but he stares down his nose at the guard with the practiced ease of the hume elite.

"She hardly comes up to your _knee_."

The man's face is red from the sun and petulant anger both. He sputters with indignation, spittle flecking into the sunlight.

"T-These filthy whelps stole from a guard! They're lucky I don't take their _hand_." The man must sense some sort of station on Balthier, or is merely aware of the difference in spine, because he neither prods a finger in his chest nor grabs his shoulder. Like a dying tree he leans forward, attempting to make do with a very slight advantage in height. "You need to keep yer head on straight, sir, or I might think _you_ hired her."

"I imagine they'd make double _your_ pay, if decorum were the deciding factor." Balthier's sneer comes easy, his tone never lifting beyond its level drawl. "Honor that lump between your ears. It will be _mighty_ difficult for her to supplement the country's growing army with her physical ability compromised. Why don't you leave the foresight to your superiors and find some real problems, hm?"

Balthier has stalled just long enough. Dalmasca's resentment toward her recently ended occupation has only continued to grow, extending even to the newly appointed guard in the name of the returned queen. Old sentiment thickens the air like pollen. The guard may not be Archadian, but his mere existence is an ugly reminder, the power that humes abused so easily increased tenfold in the company of scaled, furred and horned. The man runs a slow, bitter tongue over his teeth. With one final sneer he throws the lone coin to the ground and turns on one heel, shoving past a curious onlooker to disappear into the dust of the day.

Only when he's well out of sight does the market return to its usual raucous splendor, however much dulled with the piercing of its new reality. For a passing moment even she yearns for the isolated bubble that came with crooked stalls. It may be her roots of Golmore, ever attempting to show themselves. It may also be her new appetite for denial, shadowing the heels of adopted hume culture. Balthier's shaking head turns her attention again, from where he's attempting to refuse the coin the girl is attempting to offer.

"Thank you, sir! Thank you, _thank you_." Her gratitude blinds more than a sun's ray. "I thought I was off to the dungeons, I was! They take kids there, you know. I knew a boy named Marco. Dragged down there for stealing fifty gil. One whole month."

She's a tiny thing, knees scraped unrecognizable and ragged shift a dull tan from foot dust. She bares crooked teeth up at them in a grateful smile. Her little brother, on the other hand, glares firmly at his feet. He had lingered behind her skirt the entire time. More shadow than hume. He only looks up at the sound of his name.

"_Petah!_" The girl chastises over one shoulder. "Say thank you."

His dark eyes hold too much contempt for so young an age.

"...Thanks."

Wounds left by the Archadian Empire would take some time to heal. There had been unwanted children of all backgrounds before the war. There were only more now, so much so Lowtown has deigned to offer part-time sitters as part of its slapdash array of in-demand talent. Balthier reaches down to ruffle the girl's matted hair. He then offers the cagey boy a nod, perhaps the most respect the child has _ever_ been shown in his life. Without another word the two depart, ducking between legs and tails with the practiced ease of street urchins. Fran watches with a heavy heart. This was one of the most alarming details she witnessed once she left the Wood. That so many in such a rich world would leave innocents untended and unwatched, out of no reason more dignified than indifference.

Balthier glances her way, gray eyes hitching with a similarly weary light, then makes his way back to the afternoon's errands.

"Off we go, then."

Fran follows.

Thoughts of the past further clog the space, winding through shoulders and ponytails as surely as the wind. On her way out of the Wood she had faced wild war horses and ruthless werewolves both. Battled hunger, cold _and_ the merciless batter of sleet and rain. The sight of unwanted children, however...had almost been enough to turn her back home and beg for Her forgiveness. Fran watches two hume women share a cold drink beneath a rare slice of shade. Even after fifty years of walking among them...there were mysteries she still could not cup in both palms. Maybe it was inherent to the territory, a truth of freedom that would never be bent.

A viera rejecting the protection of bramble and thicket was about as much of a wonder as a hume bred on Archadian decadence protecting two poor children.

"Daydreaming again, Fran?"

Balthier's tone has become as warm and silky as the white Dalmascan wines she's grown fond of. Browsing for wares has done him well; the troubled light in his eyes has vanished, right along with the crinkle in his brow. Anyone else would assume he's up to his usual sweet charms, but his voice lately has been reaching depths she never previously thought possible. Grasping, halting...curious. All at once, rippling like a disturbed reflection one moment and gone the next. Fran never feared the unknown -- Jote and Mjrn had always considered her the most bold of their trio -- but this territory is one she wants to venture into with extra grace.

"You assume much about my silence." A distant argument crests down the alleyway. She quirks an ear their way -- a debate over prices, nothing more -- and turns her attention back. "It says more of you than it does me."

"Assume? I am _many_ things, Fran, but presumptuous is not one of them." He weighs a small bag of food in his hand, then another, before choosing. His deft fingers flip out a gil silver in the light, ever deliberate. "Just calling it as I see it."

"Calling like a Bhujerbian finch." She says, feeling around the smile threatening to rise to her lips. "Loudly and with little purpose."

Balthier's eyes crinkle, and that same image of a water ripple emerges in her mind, twinkling endlessly.

"You wound me so _easily_." He sighs, his mock-offense having as much purchase as a dreamhare on a frozen lake. "Here I was thinking I was special."

Their words step tenderly around one another. Their old comfort is there, the firmest it's been these brief two and a half years, but their return to Dalmasca has...changed something. This is where Fran's wisdom starts to dry out like the soil beneath the sun, drenched of anything that could support the undergrowth into something stronger. A dwindling petrichor that called to her for nurturing, astounding and mysterious. Among her sisters she had been viewed as warm, if overly curious. Among the humes she was seen as cold. Indifferent. The only similarities between the old life and the new were her calming presence.

Balthier, however, saw it all in her. Never doubted, never questioned, except maybe to tease.

The reality of who she was was much like the Wood. Fearsome, to the disrespectful and to the foolish. An impassive presence that spread roots deep beneath the surface, immune to gold lust and the endless stretch of influence both. Just like the Wood, she was ever a stalwart confidant and gracious protector. One who gave fair due to those who earned it. One who, despite appearances, needed a nurturing touch, still. Of tending and mending to retain that towering height. Not unlike the man beside her...now holding out a bright red fruit with an unmistakable luster to her nose.

"Smells ripe. What do you think?"

For the first time all day, Fran's breath stutters.

"This...this is a Golmore cherry." She says, slowly, wrapping her tongue around the clumsy Ivalician words.

They could never properly frame the honey sweetness she and her kin enjoyed while sneaking away from gathering lessons back in Eruyt. Those blissful treats that grew every other year on the far Western edge of Golmore's shoulder, clustered _just_ out of reach. Mjrn had always been too nervous to climb the trees after her fall from the salvemaker's unfinished nyura. Jote would instead climb for the both of them, determined to lead. Memories rise unbidden of stained shifts and chiding viera elders. Of the clinging sweetness that clung to claws, forever tempting another forbidden trip into the generous boughs of the Wood dear.

Fran reaches forward, then hesitates. It's an almost hume-like reaction, as if touching it would dash the memory like a startled glade.

"...It is still fresh." It glistens with a luster some would compare to a precious stone. She thinks instead to a deep dawn, sinking past the treetops. "Still good."

"Perfect." His grey eyes glitter, just before he turns and nods sharply. "Two bags."

They're a pricey investment, by most Dalmascan marketplace standards. Balthier pays for the little brown bags and hands them to her without hesitation.

"Best enjoy it while it lasts." He adds with a loose smile, and Fran feels something of the like growing on her face as they move through their errands. He never took it personally when she was slower to show her deeper gratitude, far different from the idle pleasantries his hume peers would scatter about. They continue on, the familiar comfort that settles in the small space between their shoulders is precious. No vendor here would have the coin to buy it. The buttery finish of the cherry sinks into her tongue as Balthier puts on another voice for another vendor, as contemptuous as a thunderclap.

"Five hundred gil? It's a shame I'm not in Bhujerba. They would hand me _two_ with gil to spare."

The sky pirate is a generous man, but within good reason. He haggles the merchant for the fairest price for buff oil, arms crossed and his brow in a firm line when they cast a keen eye over his clothes and raise their prices _just_ so. The Strahl was a fine creation...and one that did even better when they had money to spare. Lowtown was home to many useful goods, as well as a desperate and tired people, and it is with great reluctance they draw out their boundaries. This market may be a staircase above, but many of its merchants did business on both levels. Balthier's imperious strategy walks a fine line.

A few bored onlookers stare their way, curious for a louder argument, perhaps. Where the merchant may have acquired such a fine level of buff oil, she's not sure. All she _does_ know is that she's heard much in this market, many details that swept right past round ears to gather in the back of her mind. Once the merchant is momentarily distracted with a returning runner she leans forward and murmurs contrary prices in Balthier's ear. He leans close to her, close enough for his breath to dust her shoulder, and pretends to be less-than-interested in her apparent gossip. As they've done a hundred times before.

"That will be five hundred gil." The shopowner tries again once he's returned, snaggleteeth gleaming plaintively. Balthier clicks his tongue and waves a hand.

"When your previous Archadian mechanic paid four hundred and fifty? There's upselling, and then there's being _manipulative_."

"Oh, uh...I-"

Fran leans a hand on one hip and tilts her chin, pretending to find something _just_ over the man's shoulder fascinating. It isn't a tactic she prefers to use often, but...her height had a way of making some rethink their convictions.

"...Of course. Of course. I can see you're a man of _fine_ taste."

Fifteen minutes later they leave with their discounted buff oil, fresh rags and foodstuffs. Balthier looks mighty pleased with himself. He would likely preen, if his arms weren't full with their wares.

"Have you had one before?" She asks as they shift and side-step through the thick crowd. It's a particularly busy afternoon with the festival a mere week away. Even the children that normally gave her a respectful berth are bumping into her legs more than normal. She pays them little mind.

"Afraid not. As much as I travel I've woefully missed out on some of the rarer-" Balthier starts...then pauses when she deftly slices open one with a claw, scoops out the pit and holds the flesh up to his mouth.

The world pulses with mysteries. All of whom, fell or blessed, she swore herself to the moment she pulled away from the Wood's embrace and forever marked her ears as a stray daughter. She never thought she would find herself in a city mingled with a dozen species or flying in a ship. Much less the joy in the delicate way he steadies her wrist to lean forward and eat from her fingertips, nor the way he licks the dark juice from his lips in the poor shade of a merchant overhang. The memory becomes acquainted with the ghost of others and drifts behind them as they make their way to the Strahl for a night tinkering, talking and drinking.

If he were to accuse her of daydreaming again, he wouldn't be wrong.

*

There are days she misses her sisters so much it's unbearable.

Fran's ear flicks for perhaps the thousandth time that afternoon. She sighs through her nose and frowns at the fly, already gone and spinning another trajectory to return. Time was not kind. It did as it would, and would do so without end. Stone crumbled. Grass withered. She thought she could reason with time. That she could command it with her chin held high and her desires stretched out into the horizon, a magickal energy without name. That, eventually, even the pain of her leave would shrivel like an old tree and become little more than a memory amid the grove of her new experiences.

As it turns out, she was the most foolish of the three.

Burying her hands in the Strahl's underbelly is a proper meditation, but just barely. In-between scraping away sediment grime and replacing a minor wire a shadow falls over her work. Balthier is leaning through her sunbeam, chest heaving and brow glistening with sweat.

"Your mind running off with you this much...may need something to tie it down, hm?"

A rebuke rises to her tongue, sharp and simple, only to sit and melt into nothing. He takes her silence with grace, as he always does, and leans back into his work.

Penelo had visited them at their seasonal studio in Rabanastre. She was a busy young woman, but despite running for Migelo and learning her way around a ship, she never failed to drop by with gifts or well-wishings. She reminded her of Mjrn, in some ways. They were both honest to a fault, sweet and tender, yet _startlingly_ mature for all that the years were yet to give them. Where Mjrn was impulsive and self-righteous, however, Penelo was careful and conscientious. It's why she never arrived unnoticed without a gift (often two). Food, sometimes, with Dalmascan sweet beans for her and Bhujerban chocolates for Balthier. Other times with offers to help maintain the Strahl.

The other day she asked if they would like to join her and Vaan at the festival.

_"I'm going to be dancing in front of my biggest crowd yet. I'm so **excited**." She claps her hands together. It was a rare day when the young hume initiated a conversation about herself, always keeping others at the forefront of her mind. It spoke to her passion that she can hardly contain her glee. "I've been practicing for months...it's important to me that I get it right. We haven't had a lot to celebrate yet and this will set the stage for all to follow."_

_"Indeed it will. I am afraid I will have to turn you down." Fran says, sincerely. "We have already made plans to visit Bhujerba."_

_"Oh! Oh, of course." Penelo is nothing but her usual good cheer, disappointment held just at bay. "I hope you two have a good time."_

Fran holds back a sigh. How strange, that she would indeed _like_ to go. It's a whimsical urge, pulling her in a way she's unfamiliar with at best. Yet another thing to concern herself about, in the whorl of hume societies and their peckling concerns. She can hear Balthier shift another glance her way, but his tongue remains held. Ship maintenance was meditation for him, too. He was no doubt picking his way through memories not quite as old, but just as heady. Down the bay Nono chatters to Vene in Mooglespeak, her ears catching a stray noun here and there.

She has been to hume celebrations before, but none quite so...large. Crowds used to be beyond her comprehension, not helped by the undue attention she attracted more often than not, and she found herself more keenly drawn to hole-in-the-wall bars and intimate gatherings between friends. Over the years she's managed to grow accustomed to the wash of rank stench and chattering voices, but never to the point of joy. Not until now, where she suddenly wants to go, because Balthier has shown nothing but interest in the event and this new Dalmasca breathes with a life that almost parallels the Wood. Penelo's passion is infectious. Balthier's company...even more so.

_"Are you all right?" The girl asks, peering up at her with both arms clasped behind her back, as intuitive as she ever is. "I don't want to pressure you..."_

_Fran doesn't mind confiding in her. Indeed, she enjoyed her visits immensely, even as they were always flanked by the familiar pain of lost sisterhood. Even her pigtails reminded her of loose viera ears, of the sunkissed children that moved them to and fro before developing the strict dignity of a mature dweller of the Wood. She bids these thoughts leave her in peace and offers a smile, small though it is._

_"I am...ill at ease when in crowds." She begins. "But an event such as this comes rarely. I would also be remiss if I were to let the opportunity for fond memories over dance, wine and candlelight pass me by."_

_"I don't blame you. It gets so hot and stuffy here." Penelo fans herself, as if to further drive the point home. Fran lets slip a rare chuckle. Humes were so expressive._

_"The heat is not what I take issue with." She decides to joke herself. "The jungle, as Dalmascans would put it, could pound Dalmasca into a chocobo path."_

_"Oh, I believe it!" Her laugh rings clear as spring. "We weren't there long, but I was sweating so badly..."_

_She had given up much to be herself. Yet now she finds herself stumbling upon an old path like a clumsy child, threatening to give up her sincerity for a few moments' pleasure. She knew her departure would come with change, and here she is, fifty years later, unearthing doubt and at a loss of where to go next. Penelo's gentle hand on her shoulder turns her from the woe. She touches her only rarely, and it's a gravity that settles heavy._

_"Just tell him. I'm sure he'll figure something out." There's no condescension in her voice. Only understanding. "Vaan and I used to sit on the rooftops."_

_Intuitive as ever._

*

"Keep her safe for us, hm?"

Nono offers them a cheerful wave, stained with grease and no doubt the beginning of a very messy day. Moku and Vene follow suit, their poms bouncing happily in the evening breeze. Balthier, on the other hand, is the very image of grace. He wears a simple white tunic today, his ruffled collar partially open in common fashion and a single silver earring gleaming from his right ear. With a colorful coat tossed over his shoulders, he could blend right in as part of the Dalmascan middle-class. She feels naked without her Eruyt armor, twice over with her hair out of its practical ponytail. The Dalmascan dress is silky on her skin, though, and she enjoys the way it ripples in the warm wind.

"It's been a while." She murmurs as they make their way out of the ship's holding. Balthier scoffs as he adjusts his cuffs.

"Define your while."

"Long enough for you to remember a day without trimming your chin's fur." She offers, to another bemused scoff. "...and long enough for me to prefer somewhere quiet than rowdy."

"Mm." He twists his odd, colorful rings, thoughts dappling his face in fleeting glimpses. "It's getting busy."

It's such an odd not-request, not with all the strife they've faced together, but Penelo's wisdom holds firm. The festival's growing crowds have grown so thick they can hardly make out a cobblestone. A man bumps into her, then, and it's only her impeccable balance that keeps her steady. He's already drunk, cheap beer reeking off him like a cloud of mist. He's surrounded by a gaggle of friends that stumble nearly as blindly, and would bump into her, too, if Balthier's arm were not in the way.

"_Watch it._"

They sneer and jeer, too buzzed for more than petulance, and stumble away. For a moment her heart is stone cold, a frustrated chill soon defrosted by Balthier's warm hand on her arm.

"You okay?"

"Yes."

To her eternal gratitude, Balthier doesn't press further. He simply bobs his head toward the back stairs of a little dash-and-dine, where they go up a level, then two, then three to the rooftops. The shingles would be treacherous if it were anything other than a dry Dalmascan evening. Tonight, it's a perfect view. The crowds filling out Dalmasca's streets glitter with life. A river of light, ebbing and flowing as confidently as the stars.

Fran stretches out her legs and lifts her head to catch the wind where her skin grows sticky. Balthier reaches into his coat and pulls out a bottle and two small, thin glasses. She doesn't bother fighting back a smile this time. He wouldn't be a proper sky pirate if he couldn't, somehow, fit the most improbable of items in the smallest of spaces.

"Cheers, Fran."

He pours three fingers of rose gold each, as confidently as the bartenders at the Sandsea, and offers one to her.

"Migelo was kind enough to give me one from his stores. Don't tell him, but I think he's still thanking us for bringing back Penelo." He curves a smile around the rim of his glass. "Even though she was collateral at the time..."

Fran hums and takes a sip, slow enough to savor every flavor note as it hits. The wine travels along her tongue lightly, a skipping stone on a surface, and soon sinks warm into her belly. The scent of barbecued meat, sweat and cheap wine filter from below, swamping the air with a thickness she can't help but be fond of. And yet, despite it all, she's still unbalanced.

"Who knew a single stone could change our course so acutely..." She muses, scanning the crowd for familiar heads of hair. Balthier tugs his shirt idly.

"Mm. Can't say I regret chasing after it." He takes a deep draft and croons at the sight of the first firework, a red flower that casts a glow across what seems the entire country. "Whew. Would you look at that. Been here a few times over the years...and each festival is more impressive than the last." Balthier loops an arm over one knee, hunching forward to view the smaller pops of color below. "Dalmascans know how to party."

That they do. A country carved out by pain, recently recovered from a war, has no other choice if it wants to stay sane. Fran stares beyond the cluster of bodies to the distant stage, where a familiar presence has begun to twirl and hop. A dance swathed in pink that somehow gives voice to the unsteadiness within her, and the wordless joy buried deep, deep inside.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has sat on my computer...for a _long_ time.
> 
> Two years, I think, in little chunks and snippets. I've loved this game since college, too, so this is a long time coming. Had to go back and edit the fuck out of this thing because my writing skill has improved significantly in that span of time. To all those who still love the hell out of this game -- and Ivalice in general -- I hope you enjoy!
> 
> and please screech with me about fran and balthier, it is very cold and lonely in these rarepair streets


End file.
